By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Construction crews with the Blalock Construction company are making progress on Alabaster’s new City Hall building, and are set to finish the project in late July, said Alabaster City Administrator George Henry.

Henry said city officials have been meeting with Blalock representatives every other week for the past several months, and said construction is “proceeding well.”

The foundation and walls for the new building are up, and construction crews recently worked to cure concrete on the building’s shell. The new City Hall building is next to the Alabaster Senior Center on the old Siluria cotton mill site.

In July 2012, the Alabaster City Council voted to award an about $3.5 million bid to Blalock to construct the two-story, 19,835-square-foot building, which will house Alabaster’s administrative offices, city court and other municipal departments.

The new City Hall will consolidate offices currently spread across multiple buildings. The new building will include a 170-seat courtroom, a city office suite and a conference room for city boards. The building’s second floor will be used for storage, and could accommodate future growth, Henry said previously.

Once the new City Hall building is complete, the Alabaster Police Department will expand into the upper floor of the current City Hall building on U.S. 31. The police department currently occupies the lower floor of the U.S. 31 building.